[FAS] Culture and Belief 61:Gender and Science: From Marie Curie to Gamergate

The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, one of the largest medical libraries in the world, serves the Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston Medical Library, and the Massachusetts Medical Society. The Countway Library holds more than 630,000 volumes, subscribes to 3,500 current journal titles and houses over 10,000 non-current biomedical journal titles. The library also provides access to many electronic information resources.

The library is at 10 Shattuck Street in Boston, on the Harvard Medical School campus.

The Countway's Center for the History of Medicine, holds one of the world’s leading collections in the history of medicine, public health, the biosciences, and health care. The Center’s holdings attract students and scholars from Harvard University and from around the globe to consult its rare books and journals, archives, manuscripts, photographs, prints, art, and artifact collections, and the collections of the Warren Anatomical Museum. 

Holmes Hall, the reading room of the Center for the History of Medicine, is on lower level 2 of the library, and open to the public, Monday through Friday, 9:00am-5:00pm. The Center is usually closed on major holidays and university holidays.

As many items in our printed and manuscript collections are now housed in offsite storage, advance appointments to use the collections are strongly encouraged.  Contact the reference staff at 617.432.2170 or chm@hms.harvard.edu to schedule an appointment or for information about the holdings here.

Personal photography of items in the collection using a digital camera (no flash, all sounds muted or disabled as far as possible) may be permitted under certain circumstances.

Medical journal literature will be a rich resource for articles and other information related to women in medicine, and the Countway holds one of the largest collections of medical publications in the nation.

For citations from 1960 to the present, use the PubMed database and run an advanced search on the phrase "physicians, women".

For citations to articles before 1960, use the Index Catalogue and search on the phrases "women in medicine and science" and "women as physicians".

Another way to find information on (particularly) 19th and early 20th century holdings which may not be well cataloged or described is to browse HOLLIS (use the HOLLIS Classic interface for this), change the search type to "other call number" and enter "1.pw"--that's an old classification for works related to women as physicians.

The Archives for Women in Medicine program at the Countway was established to acquire, preserve, promote, and provide access to the professional and personal records of outstanding women leaders, principally at Harvard.

The holdings include oral history interviews sponsored by Harvard's Joint Committee on the Status of Women and the Foundation for the History of Women in Medicine, many of which discuss the challenges women faced as medical students, faculty members, and professionals.  Many of the interviews have been digitized and made available along with transcripts and other items from the AWM collections.  

To find these resources, use Countway OnView, a portal site to digital resources  and search for "oral histories" or "archives for women in medicine".  An online exhibit of the oral history projects of the Foundation for the History of Women in Medicine may be found here.

A list of manuscript collections from the Archives now open for research may be found on the program's webpage.  

The Archives for Women in Medicine has also mounted online exhibits of some of its holdings and collections:

The Stethoscope Sorority: Stories from the Archives for Women in Medicine

Grete L. Bibring: The Modern Woman

Leading by Teaching: Elizabeth D. Hay and Lynne M. Reid

Mary Ellen Avery: Highlights from Her Collection

The Center for the History of Medicine also holds documentation of the attempts of women to enter medicine in the 19th century, and many of these items are available in digital form through Harvard's Open Collections project  Women Working, 1800-1930. 

The area's first medical school for women, the New England Female Medical College, opened in 1852.  A useful account is:

HOLLIS number [005682869]
Waite, Frederick C. (Frederick Clayton), 1870-1956.
History of the New England Female Medical College, 1848-1874.  
Boston, Boston University School of Medicine, 1950.
132 p. front. 24 cm.
Countway Medicine | Rare Books Reference | R747.N44 W2 
Countway Medicine | Harvard Depository | 1.Fh.1950.1
Countway Medicine | Harvard Depository | 1.Fh.261.

The Women Working project digitized the historical scrapbook of the College along with its annual catalogs and reports.  The library also holds a reasonably complete run (not digitized) of the catalogs, 1850-1918, of the Female (later Woman's) Medical College of Pennsylvania, the first medical school in the country to admit women.

The debate to allow women admission to the Massachusetts Medical Society, 1879-1884, is documented in:

HOLLIS number [006132414]
Chadwick, James R. (James Read), 1844-1905.
Medical education and society membership of women : correspondence and clippings / collected and arranged by James R. Chadwick. 1879-1884.
1 v. (unpaged) ; 32 cm.
Countway Medicine | Rare Books ff | 1.Pw.1

A digital reproduction of the Chadwick album is available through Women Working.  A related scrapbook concerned with the medical education of women and sex discrimination in Europe, collected by James R. Chadwick, is also available:

HOLLIS number [011502713]
Study and practice of medicine by women in Europe ... [clippings and correspondence] / collected by J.R. Chadwick, M.D.
1873-1884. 1 v. (unpaged) ; 28 cm.
Countway Medicine | Rare Books f | 1.Pw.2

A useful reference work on the subject of women physicians is:

HOLLIS number [002226503]
Women in medicine; a bibliography of the literature on women physicians. Compiled and edited by Sandra L. Chaff (et al.)
Metuchen, N.J., Scarecrow Press, 1977. 1124 p.
Countway Medicine | Rare Books Reference | R692 .C34 
Countway Medicine | ZW 21 W872 1977

For an overview of the history of women at Harvard Medical School see:

HOLLIS number [007465841]
Nercessian, Nora Nouritza.
"Worthy of the honor" : a brief history of women at Harvard Medical School / Nora N. Nercessian.
Boston : President and Fellows of Harvard College, c1995.
x, 129 p. : ill., ports. ; 23 cm.

Countway Medicine | Harvard Depository | W 21 N443w 1995
Countway Medicine | Rare Books | Archives
Countway Medicine | Rare Books Reference | R692 .N44 1995

In 1850, Harriot Kesia Hunt (1805-1875) was the first woman to attempt to apply for admission to the Harvard Medical School.  This is her autobiography:

HOLLIS number [005673963]
Hunt, Harriot Kesia, 1805-1875.
Glances and glimpses, or, Fifty years social : including twenty years professional life / by Harriot K. Hunt.
Boston : J.P. Jewett and Co. ; Cleveland, Ohio : Jewett, Proctor and Worthington ; New York : Sheldon, Lamport and Blakeman, 1856.
xii, 418 p. ; 19 cm.

Countway Medicine | Rare Books | R154 .H91
Countway Medicine | Rare Books | R154 .H91 1856 c.2

A digital version is also available.

Brief autobiographical accounts of notable women physicians may be found in:

HOLLIS number [000915507]
Women physicians of the world : autobiographies of medical pioneers / editor, Leone McGregor Hellstedt.
Washington : Hemisphere Pub. Corp., c1978. xv, 420 p. : ports. ; 25 cm.
Countway Medicine | Harvard Depository | WZ 150 W872 1978 Consult Circulation Desk for HC2Y5W
Countway Medicine | Rare Books Reference | R692 .W87 1978